Opportunity Cost versus Losses
One of the things many people forget to factor into an equation is the Opportunity Cost of making one decision over another. Nowhere is this lack more evident than in the way that government makes its decisions. On balance, decisions are either solely or primarily for political expediency. Unfortunately, the voting public has a short memory of such decisions and errors in favor of the politically expedient solution (On the other hand, if voters were more discerning, politically expedient would no longer be expedient to the politicians…)
It’ s hard to find a better example of this than in the way in which the Democratic Party approached the war in Iraq. Initially, when broad internal and international support was engaged, the Democrats were supportive. Over time, as they saw this would be a difficult fight, they became opposed (see the war in Libya for an example of why their “opposition” may have been political expediency rather than based on moral grounds..)
Bush, despite his many flaws, was a rare politician who would follow his convictions rather than taking the easy way out. He, I believe, correctly saw Iraq as a key strategic location in the Middle East, a strategic location that could be used in great advantage for several different ends. Without debating the endless question of whether or not Iraq was living up to their previous agreements and whether or not that (and their killing of civilians and the need for expensive and endless “no fly zone” coverage by the US, there were still many reasons for us to do what we did:
- Location, as seen by Gulf War I, Iraq is a country where we can launch and execute heavy armor maneuvers without getting bogged down in rugged terrain
- Iraq has a relatively educated populace and even a relatively recent history of women who are educated and part of the work force. An economic and social success here could have longer term impact on other states.
- Iraq occupies a central position between Saudi Arabia and Iran along with access to the Persian Gulf and into Syria and Turkey — from a logistics and military staging standpoint, Iraq is a great piece of real estate
- Hussein had long been a strong supporter and advocate for terrorists – ones who worked directly with him and those who were only supported indirectly. Whether or not he was directly involved in 9-11 (it appears he wasn’t), he had often and effectively worked with terrorists who were not from his Baath party and who were often Shia. In other words, when it came to working against the U.S. religious and political differences meant little.
So there were plenty of reasons for wanting to make this work with a large number of potential benefits to be gained. Certainly, things did not always go as planned. Fallujah was a gut check moment to many (and when I first came across the Belmont Club, as an aside). The decision to let the State Department take over in the aftermath of the war was disastrous, in my opinion. The wave of terrorist attacks and the disintegration of the effort even appeared to have turned the war/post-war into a lost cause. But amidst all of those things the military and Bush held firm. I think it was fascinating that Bush stayed the course even with the very possible loss of reelection. I think it is fascinating that he was the one who pushed the surge, even over opposition and disagreement in factions of the military leadership and over almost unanimous opposition in the State department. But, recognizing the benefits, he held firm and pushed us to victory — not because of political expediency, but because of real tangible benefits to our country and our effort.
However, it has now been 3 years since Bush led our foreign policy, and the 2008 election was seen as an immediate and strong repudiation of his leadership. Instead of embracing the benefits and making sure that those benefits were captured, our leadership switched to trying to exit as quickly as possible. Now, with our troops on their way out what have we gained from the cost of blood and money we spent?
1. Hussein is gone. This is obviously a victory, and a good thing for the citizens of Iraq. One need only look at the examples of the “Arab Spring” to realize that too often the citizens of these countries end up going from the frying pan into the fire when they get change they want.
2. We have and are likely to continue to have deep ties with the Iraqi military. HOWEVER, due to our inability to reach agreement with the Iraqi government over immunity for our troops (necessary because if endemic and factional corruption in their government officials), we will have to remove all of our troops by the end of the year. While this may have the door open for some logistics teams and others who can quickly ramp up another effort if needed, it may not be as optimal it could have been. Indeed, most Iraqis would like to see the US troops remain – for a couple of reasons. Because they don’t yet trust their own security troops and to ward off a threat of invasion from Iran.
3. A wealth of information. While the Democrats were busy decrying anything and everything as a human rights violation, our troops and our agents were busy extracting and analyzing information from thousands of sources. While it made the effort difficult on the ground for our troops, the migration of fighters to Iraq for the other side brought many of our enemies into the same place at the same time allowing us to capture and interrogate them.
There are more things that can be mentioned including the prestige of the US in the area. While this should not be confused with a popularity contest like an election for Prom Queen, this was nonetheless real. We extracted huge benefits from this war in dealing with several countries in the middle east — Libya gave up a nuclear weapons program and Qaddafi was a near agent for us prior to his fall. Syria and Lebanon both had changes due to our show of strength — In particular we may have been able to make larger gains in Lebanon had we had the necessary political will to make them stick.
I still believe that agitation against the war on the homefront prevented us from holding firm in Lebanon. Indeed, that agitation and the political changes of ’08 have cheated us out of many of the benefits we should have earned from the war. Not only is Iran now emboldened and pushing their influence throughout the middle east, but we are seen as weaklings (or worse dupes) who can be used to support the opposition because of our silly policies (dump Mubarak and bring in more radical Muslim leadership for Egypt — “lead from behind” in Libya allowing Muslim organizations to seize power there and to take the credit, announce a timeline for withdrawal in Iraq and give our enemies a precise clock to know how long they have to hold out).
While the current President has not “lost” the war in Iraq and the Middle East, he’s put us in a position of paying the price without getting the full benefits of what we tried to do. That opportunity cost will, as always, come back to haunt us at some point in the future (just as it did when we did nothing to stop the Shah of Iran from being deposed, for instance). Does that mean that whatever group takes control in Egypt will be as bad as the Ayatollah? No, but indications are that it will be much worse than Mubarak for us and for the citizens of that country. In the end, no “losing” in the past 3 years will cost us a great deal more in the future. The opportunity cost of Obama’s actions will only be addressed in the coming years, and I fear that those costs will be great.
